


A New Beginning

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Destiny Exos, F/M, Warlock OC, Warlock Vanguard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 23:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6492811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selene Backstory, and moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> [ Find it on Tumblr here ](http://jencforcarolina.tumblr.com/post/136715317958/a-new-beginning)
> 
>  
> 
> Week 1 on 52 stories challenge that I never completed: A story titled "A New Beginning"

Calendars were fucked up a long time ago. No one really knows what day it is anymore. The cryptarchs handle decoding it all, piecing it together. For now the City functions on an uncertain system of “I think it’s winter now” and “Summer is coming in like a week maybe six?” and “Where the hell is spring?”

So New Years is a two week long semi-celebration of general acknowledgment of the ending of one year and the beginning of another. For some it brings hope, the survival of another arbitrary unit of time. For others it’s a reminder that the city’s days are numbered, that they all may be another year closer to destruction.

Selene is somewhere in between the two. Surrounded by Exos as long as she could remember, then Guardians, death is something both close and distant. Dying is a weekly ritual for her, she had lost track of how many deaths under her belt long ago. They hold little weight, not nearly as much as a reset. She remembered everything after she rezed from mere death.

Loss, however, loss is different.

There has only been one person, that she can recall, that she lost.

Edon. He was the one who protected her. Back in the crumbling burg they had resided in long ago, he had been her constant companion. He had allowed her to stay with him in his home. A hole in the wall passing for a room in a building deemed unsafe for human residents. Their bed was a pile of sacks, their door a broken wooden pallet. All their belongings were kept on them or in a locked box hidden behind a loose cinder block.

There were dozens of other Exos in that building too. Living wasn’t quite the word for it, and not due to their inorganic nature. Mostly it was a place to crash (hopefully not literally) at night, especially when the curfews went into place.

He had been the dearest person to her. She had never wanted to leave his side. He seemed to have felt the same for her, they never talked about it directly, but he sought her out as often as she sought him. They were companions, the best companions. His absence was a perpetual hole in her mind.

And she hated anything that tried to fill it.

She touched down outside her old city. It was as crumbled and rust covered as the last time she had seen it, on a long range scouting mission with Eyahn and Auburn. No Fallen presence detected so they hadn’t entered the town proper. She did now.

She retraced the steps she had taken out. Three months ago, or three centuries ago, she had run from this town, run from the Fallen attack. Three months and three hundred years ago he had died with two vandal’s blades through his chest. And since then she had kept up the fickle hope that he, like she, would become a Guardian.

He was stronger than she was, faster than she was, smarter than she was. He could handle himself and a gun, he could fight, he was not afraid of the humans. When the City had tried to conscript them all, tried to force its population of mechanical refugees -fresh and confused from a long sleep and a universal wipe- into the town’s guard, it was Edon who stood up and said no. He knew that there were some like her who had been crippled by the Overarching Reset, some that didn’t remember how to fight, some who had been reduced to minds in shells with only emotions and motor skills, no memories or proper training. He knew people like her would be doomed against the Fallen.

The town’s council wanted Exos to be the militia, only Exos. No others. They wouldn’t risk the lives of their own kind, so instead they wanted to risk hers. They didn’t believe in the Exo consciousness. They didn’t treat them as people. It was Edon who had urged their comrades to protest. Collectively, they refused the order and retreated into the decrepit part of town where he and Selene lived. The human’s police, their peace guard, tried to force them with attacks. The resistance fought back. The shooting was scattered, sparse, but it was enough. When the Fallen finally came, no one was ready. She could see that now, three months and three hundred years later.

She could see that now, staring down at Edon’s body on their bed.

He had been killed in the square three blocks away, she knew it. She had seen it. He had pulled himself here, probably dripping coolant and lubricant, for a reason. And it had to be for her. He hoped she would find him, here. Help him, repair him. Instead, she had run. She had run for three days as far away from the town as she could. She had left him behind.

Her shame boiled in her and fought with anger. Sometime since he had died, his head had been ripped open at the back, parts had been taken from his chest cavity. An entire arm was gone, and the joint from one of his ankles. Not only had she left him to die but she had left him to the scavengers too. She was filled with disgust that someone would mangle his body, but more than anything horrified she had not been there to stop it from happening, however illogical that thought was. She reached down and shifted what was left of him into a more peaceful shape. Turned his head to hide the hole, pushed the plating back over his chest, fixed his foot so it looked as though it was still attached.

Reached down and brushed his cheek….

Nothing happened. He was dead.

There was a chance, she thought. A barest chance that she would see him walking and smiling again. But he wasn’t alive right now. He probably wouldn’t be alive again today. Probably not tomorrow either. Ghosts had been searching for centuries. None had chosen him yet. The odds got slimmer with each minute that passed that he would ever be alive again, that he would ever hold her again.

More than anything right then she wanted to be held and told it was okay, but she had chilled so many potential arms.

Except one pair, specifically.

She rose to her feet in an automatic motion, triggered by emotional need, not conscious thought. She left their room, left the town, held out a hand and Coach brought down the ship again.

She stood in the doorway of her mentor’s room, emotions dripping off her in a way only a Warlock’s could. Auburn blinked at her and set aside her stitching without a word. Stood up and opened her arms. Selene fell into them and decided this new companion would be okay, an exception would be made. This new year, this would be enough.


End file.
